11 plus support thread for exams 2024

[ElvenDreamer]

Hi all,
Anyone fancy joining me for for an 11 plus support thread for those yr 5s who are probably just starting a bit of prep now ready to sit exams in September 2024?

State grammar is the angle I'm personally coming from but all welcome no matter if you're applying to private selective, state aptitude tests etc.

This will be my 3rd and final time of going through this and I've found support threads here really useful the previous times.

@MincemeatMaestro thank you so much that’s such a handy document! Yeah so there is a larger radius priority area around the school and a smaller eastern Warwickshire/ Rugby area that is priority 1. So I think more places available in that group and a capped number of spots in the outer circle.
we are Saturday too I will be glad to get it over with and be able to see my dining table again under all the past papers 😂
good luck to your DC for Saturday!

All done here! Just completed our tests on 10th and today. DS has come out smiling. We are off for a meal with family. He is happily playing a game we have saved for today. I'm exhausted! Might leave it a day or so before clearing away the papers and resources. Will sleep well tonight until the anxious wait for the results begins! Good luck to all of you who are still on that final grind!

@121212YNWA glad your DS came out smiling! I literally can't wait for this to be over, I'm very envious that you're all done! Enjoy the relaxation. DD has the familiarisation paper tomorrow morning.

@121212YNWA I'm glad it was a good experience for your DC, that's all we call all ask really, that they come out feeling good, no matter the actual result. One week to go here....

Can anyone sitting GL (Warwickshire) tell me roughly the timings for each exam? I believe it's two papers, but unsure how long on each part.

There is such little information available online!

Congratulations, @121212YNWA! We're done too and DS thinks it went OK. Now it's the waiting game (and trying not to think about it too much for the next five weeks).

@SpinningOutWaitingForYa, DS says it was two papers, both of which were about an hour. Good luck this weekend!

Thank you! Hope he came out happy 😀

Do you know if it's a mixture of all maths/english/NVR/VR on each paper or a different split?

@ElvenDreamer @MincemeatMaestro thanks both so much. Yes you are right, all we can hope for is it is not an awful experience, regardless of the result, and you never quite know how they will react on the day...fortunately it was omay for us. @MincemeatMaestro congratulations you are all done too! Hope you've got lots planned to keep everyone distracted this next few weeks.

Wish I’d found this thread weeks ago…. Made the naive mistake of thinking that as DD is always one of the top in her class and consistently achieves highly, she’d be fine with the test. I didn’t really know what it involves, couldn’t get my head round it when I looked, and have now discovered at the last minute that it is seemingly impossible to pass without having done at least a load of practice papers beforehand, if not tutoring for the past year. We were utterly determined not to push her lots and make her spend ages revising for it, but now I feel like we’ve just let her down by not preparing her properly and I feel awful about it. It only all came out after she did the exam for one of the schools and she didn’t understand how the questions all worked as she wasn’t familiar with the style. I thought it was designed to work out the top 30% of kids just based on what they’ve done in school, and I thought that tutoring was just parents panicking, but it turns out that’s not the case.

As it happens she has been up half the night with an awful cold and I wouldn’t be sending her into school anyway, let alone an exam, so we’re going to have to ask for the alternative date, which buys us a bit more time. But I’m just so angry that the system works this way! We should have looked into it more, I know, but I have three jobs, DH works full time while also studying for an MSc, we have a much younger child too, and because all the teachers have told us how well she does we just thought it would be fine. It’s so wrong that ten year olds are put under this sort of pressure!

I also hate the idea of tutoring but you have to as they aren't taught the skills to pass the test plus it tests on them on work from year 6 even though they haven't yet learnt it!

Unfortunately, this is the way it is. Some exams are so difficult, the questions seem impossible....even for adults! Children have to prep for it, as some things are not even taught yet when the exam happens. No matter how smart you are, you will not be able to figure out math formula's you have not been taught yet. But that being said if you have a few days and your dd is bright and determined she might be able to cram a few days (keep her home to recover from the cold and she can study while resting).

Yes, I realise that now. It seems so unfair on the ones who don’t have parents who can spend time helping them. I get that it’s a fact of life, to a certain extent, but ten seems such a ridiculously young age to be subjected to all of this!

It's all because of, "There are currently 163 grammar schools in England with a total of around 176,000 pupils.The number of state grammar schools peaked at almost 1,300 in the mid-1960s when around one-quarter of all pupils in state secondaries attended grammars. Their number started falling soon after. The fastest period of decline was the 1970s; between 1971 and 1978 650 grammar schools closed". Source-https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01398/ We all want the best for our children and we can't really afford private schools, the grammar school, seems, is the only solution. As a result,we have a huge competition between the parents ( not children really). I hate to see articles about "gifted children" , who know dictionaries by heart by 11 years , as I understand the reason of their knowledge and how they were forced to memorise that bloody dictionary. It's not healthy for children, for parents, obviously it doesn't work for talented children, who don't have additional coaching. The only solution is to have a number of grammar schools in every region( see Kent with 32 grammar schools) for the 20% of the brightest.

It doesn’t help that at the grammar school open days, they said ‘kids don’t need tutoring - just show them a couple of past papers’. Seems disingenuous, especially when some of the maths simply isn’t covered in Y5.

The reality is there’s a whole industry behind this and, rightly or wrongly, if you took the headteacher literally, the child would be at a disadvantage.

However, if you still have a few weeks, just getting to know the style of questions will still be useful

@InsolentAnnie - your headteacher has a legal right to appeal on your child’s behalf.

Just a quick reminder that we shouldn’t be discussing any specific papers at the moment. Some children will be sitting the paper at a later stage and it would give them an unfair advantage.

My child sat the Birmingham exams and couldn’t finish all of the NVR due to time. I feel so disappointed as my child has worked so hard but just not fast enough for the NVR. Does anyone else feel the same way?

My DC sat the South West Hertfordshire consortium test and he ran out of time for the NVR, as did 3 others we know (we know only one child who completed it). If that’s representative of the kids who sat it generally then presumably it won’t matter too much - hopefully it’s the same for you.

My ds sat the Trafford consortium today. It was absolutely bonkers so busy. He came out happy and said he could do all of it and finished it all so what will be will be.

We have the Catholic exam on Friday which is his first choice. Will be so relieved when it's all over for him.

Next ds starts his tuition on Saturday. Thank god he is my last one!

It’s quite typical for them to suddenly make the VR or NVR really hard one year or the comprehension or whatever and it is quite unpredictable. We have done 2 so far, 2 more to go this week. And then maybe stage 2. It’s very tedious and we only started prep in the summer,’not sure how others keep the momentum going for longer than that. Hats off! My kid is already bored and fed up.

@troppibambini6 same for us, doing Ambrose on Friday. That is our first choice too!

@Gobbolinothewitchscat I wasn't asking for specific information on the exam for this year.
I was trying to find out if it's usually 4 separate papers or combined papers. I'm totally new to it!

Is it the same exam across the country?

@yoshiblue hi nice to have someone in the same boat! Hope your son found today ok?

@troppibambini6 I'll send you a DM!

Non pupil premium children, need to score 12% higher than the mean of everyone taking the test, so realistically here's no way of achieving that without covering NVR, even with craming.